Resident Evil: Our Last Reward
by Orbital Frame Productions
Summary: With most mysteries, there is a logical chain of events that follow in a linear path: you find clues, you piece them together, you solve everything. It's very simple, almost novel like. Things aren't always that simple though. What I do know however, is that this is going to be the longest night of my life, and I have to see it through to the end.


Title: Resident Evil: Our Last Reward  
Rating: M for Mature (Violence, Instances of Harsh Language)  
Genres: Action/Adventure/Humour/Mystery

Author's Note: Requested by a friend of mine; she and I are fans of the Resident Evil series so she wanted me to write a story based on it. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do with it since my last attempt ended up just being an OC adaption of RE 2 and 3, and I wanted to be a bit more original than that. I hope this meets your expectations, you know who you are.

* * *

Prologue: Zero Escape

The three of us walked through the hallway leading to the main hall. I stayed silent throughout the entire walk, the contents of the diary still on my mind. It didn't tell us everything we needed to know about our predicament, but it did shed some light on how this situation came about. Umbrella, the massive pharmaceutical company, was behind some strange incidents in the past few months. You see, some strange murders have occurred recently, and the Raccoon City Police Department's Special Tactics and Rescue Service, or S.T.A.R.S as the populace called them, was sent in to investigate. The Bravo Team went missing after searching for the hideout of the group in the Arklay Mountains, and the Alpha Team went in shortly afterwards. Out of the 12 members of S.T.A.R.S that went into that mansion, only 4 survived. I recalled their names: Chris Redfield, Jill Valentine, Barry Burton and Rebecca Chambers.

The diary also makes mention that the R.P.D blocked any attempts into further investigation into Umbrella's affairs, Mr. Redfield suspected that Umbrella was paying off the Chief of Police. Of course, this was all hypothetical; there wasn't actually any concrete evidence that they were involved. I had to admit though, the situation we were in made me question whether the S.T.A.R.S members were right or not. Before I could think on it further, we reached our destination, where a few other people were waiting near the fountain.

"Hey, Ross; Carly, Sophie. Find anything interesting?" The male police officer asked. His name is Leon S. Kennedy; he said that it was his first night on the job. And what a hell of a night to start his career. The woman wearing the biker jacket's name was Claire Redfield. As you can easily surmise, she's Chris Redfield's younger sister. She came to Raccoon City after she lost contact with him a month before.

"Nothing much: a diary, a couple bullets. Nothing else." I went into thinking mode as I said this; something seemed off. The fact that there weren't any guns in the S.T.A.R.S office worried me. As did the fact that we were running a little short on ammo.

"Well, we checked the second floor on the opposite side. There was a library there, with _another_ puzzle." Leon said to us, sounding exasperated.

"I heard from my brother that this place is confusing, I always thought he was exaggerating." Claire said in the same tone of voice.

"Yeah, this place can make old castles look straightforward." I agreed, "So, what did you find?"

It was here that Leon and Claire started to look nervous.

"Well… That's the thing… We didn't find anything."

"…What?" I stood there; trying not to let the shock I was feeling show.

"We did the puzzle. Relatively simple; we just matched the bookcases to the picture and it slid up. There wasn't anything behind it though… You think someone could have taken whatever was in it?"

(No… That can't be right. That wasn't what…!)

"Ross, you alright?" Claire asked. I shook my head and looked at her.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I said, letting out a breath, "It's strange though, why have you go through the trouble of solving the puzzle if there's nothing to gain?"

"Yeah, I agree. Something's wrong here." Leon went off near the stairs, presumably to think about our situation and how to proceed.

(Hey, where are the others…?)

I looked around and I saw Carly and Sophie crouching near the door we came in from. Curious, I went over to them.

"You find something?" I asked. They moved their heads out of the way to let me see.

"Take a look at this." Sophie said, pointing to the floor. I looked at where her finger pointed, and saw something that interested me.

"Gunpowder?" I said, "What is this doing here?"

"Dunno." Carly said calmly, "I don't think it came from any of our guns."

"We would have heard if any of the guns were fired." Sophie added, "Which means it's been here since we've got here and we didn't notice until now."

"Or… Someone else came through here after we did." I pointed out that possibility.

"No, we would have heard if anyone else was here."

"Just because a gun wasn't fired doesn't mean gunpowder can't end up here. You saw the gunpowder in the evidence room, didn't you?"

She nodded, conceding that I had a point.

"Yes… If that's the case, then why is it here?"

I examined the gunpowder carefully.

"Hmm… The amount of powder is very small but it could have come from those containers we saw. There could be more lying around the police station, but I can safely say that whoever spilt the gunpowder took at least one of the containers from the evidence room."

"How can you be so sure?" Sophie asked, not seeing my logic.

"It's quite simple really." Carly jumped in before I could speak, "The boxes in the evidence room require keys to open. Without them, someone can just waltz in and steal important pieces of evidence."

"Exactly..." I nodded my head, "Whoever took it knew what they were looking for. I can only assume that the reason they took it was to make bullets, but to spill it even just a bit tells us something."

"Yeah, he or she was chased by something."

"We would have heard if there was a chase going on though, especially if it was something huge." Sophie pointed out though.

(Yeah, that's right… Well, that shoots my theory out of the water.)

"That means that whoever was here showed up before us." I concluded, "Now the questions become _'What kind of chase happened here?'_ and probably even more frightening… _'Is the monster still here?'_"

The reaction of my friends was immediate: fear and confusion flashed across their faces. I was nervous as well.

"I think we should tell Leon and Claire." I say as calmly as I could, given the situation we may have found ourselves in.

"Agreed." Sophie said, "If there is something lurking the halls and we separate again, they need to be on their guard."

"There's no need for that." Leon's voice called out from behind us. I didn't expect him to just be standing there.

(How long has he been there!?)

"You guys sure know how to investigate." He complimented us, but I didn't smile; not while having knowledge of what could happen.

"Well, when the three of us put our heads together, we make a _somewhat_ competent investigation group." I said sarcastically. Carly and Sophie looked a tad insulted.

"What does that mean?" Carly asked, sounding surprised that I said that. I shook my head in response.

"Forget about it." I turned to Leon, "I don't think we should stay here any longer than necessary."

"The only place we haven't checked is the east wing of the first floor." Leon pointed out the door near the entrance, "If we're going to find something; that would probably be the place to look."

"Alright, let's get a move on- -"

Before I could finish the sentence, a low rumbling noise ran through the police station. The tremors weren't large, but they were noticeable enough for us to pick up on it.

(What was that?)

"I have a bad feeling about this…" Carly said, looking around for any sign of trouble. The tremors grew bigger and bigger as we stayed there, and a familiar chill went down my spine.

(No… No, no, NO!)

The door we were near started to crack, as though a powerful force rammed into it. In fact, that was exactly what happened.

(How is this possible!? I blocked the way he came in! That monster shouldn't be here!)

I was terrified, well and truly terrified. The wood started to splinter and I could see a little light from the room behind it, but I couldn't see that creature.

(Did I do something wrong!? What did I do wrong!?)

We all stepped back to the entrance quickly, keeping an eye on the door.

"What is that thing!?" Claire shouted; her gun in hand.

(That's right! They haven't seen him yet! I need to get them out of here!)

"Guys, we need to run! Right now!" I yelled, no longer trying to hide my fear.

"Did you see it on your way down here!?" Leon asked, training his gun on the door.

"No! And if we don't move, we're done for!" I shouted, "Now book it; if it finds us we're dead!"

"But we'll run into- -"

The wooden door came apart, various bits flown across the room and hit the wall opposite.

"JUST RUN!"

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Author's Note: Not as long as I envisioned it to be, but that will change in later chapters. You've probably noticed some similar character names to my other fic in the works right now. There's a good reason for that; it's simply a by-product of the previous version of this fic, my friend will know exactly what I'm talking about. I will make one thing perfectly clear here though: I only ever use self-inserts if I want to make a point. With this fic, it's extremely simple what point I want to get across: that a good self-insert story is possible, and shouldn't be written off immediately because of that fact. I'm sure some of you are already aware of this and don't feel it necessary for me to point it out, but unfortunately, some people aren't exactly as willing to give things a chance. So, to those of you that are skeptical of this, I hope you stick around; ignore the fact that it's a self-insert and you might be pleasantly surprised, same goes for the Persona 3 story as well. Leave a review: rant, rave, provide tips on how things could be done better, you know the drill by now, at least I hope so. Hope to see you next chapter… Oh, almost forgot about this, if something seems wrong here and there, I haven't played Resident Evil in forever, so it'll take me a while to get back into the swing of things here. Now, it's the end of this very long note. Have a nice trick!


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